Credit: Far Out / Publicity
Sun 9 August 2026 5:00, UK
They say ‘talent borrows, genius steals’ was a quote from Oscar Wilde, although nobody can be certain he didn’t steal it, but as Noel Gallagher, and indeed Nathan Fillion, will tell you, there’s nothing wrong with nabbing something to make it your own as long as you give it a bit of a twist.
In Gallagher’s case, he leaned heavily on The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Sex Pistols in order to change rock history, and as for Fillion, given he is something of an action and sci-fi hero, who better to be influenced by than an actor who has been in probably the best known and most successful franchises in both genres?
Fillion has been a favourite among the comic book set since he starred in the early 2000s show Firefly, its spin-off movie Serenity, and then eight seasons of the crime mystery comedy Castle from 2009. He then moved on to one of the longest-running shows on network TV in the States, The Rookie, the police procedural drama about a divorced man in his 40s who leaves his hometown and heads to Los Angeles to join law enforcement.
He’s also been seen over the last decade in the two rival superhero universes of DC and Marvel, firstly in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad in 2022, then as Master Karja in the following year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and then last year as the Green Lantern in Gunn’s Superman reboot.
So what about his penchant for pinching? Well, that comes from some people comparing him to Star Wars and Indiana Jones movie icon Harrison Ford, a comparison that prompted Fillion to admit, “I think that might be because I steal from him constantly. People say, ‘Is that an homage to Harrison Ford?’ And I say, ‘Not so much a homage as it is copying exactly, but thank you’.”
Which is admirable honesty from a successful actor, but then Ford did indeed run so that other action/sci-fi stars could walk, especially when he was being chased by Stormtroopers or a big rolling boulder. Fillion certainly inherited Ford’s trademark mixture of ruggedness and sardonic humour, particularly with his role as Captain Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds in Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
Self-deprecating space cowboys they both may be, but there is a huge disparity between the general popularity of the projects that made them famous, and to varying degrees. While Firefly was cancelled after just one season (although it remains one of the highest-rated shows on IMDb to this day), Ford’s movies, especially the first Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, were box office behemoths that catapulted him to the top of the Hollywood A-list, earning more than $1billion in revenue.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Meanwhile, Fillion has more of The Rookie to appear in, plus he’ll reprise his role as The Green Lantern for Gunn’s next Superman movie, called Man of Tomorrow, which should hit cinemas in just shy of a year’s time, around July 9th, 2027.
Before that, however, we’ll see him as the man who becomes the Lantern, Guy Gardner, as Fillion goes opposite Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre in Lanterns, the origin series from DC Studios that will air on HBO from August 16th.
